The present invention relates to a rotary wing aircraft main rotor blade, and more particularly to a main rotor blade tip arrangement.
Rotary-wing aircraft rotor blades often include an anhedral tip section of a selected sweep, taper, and form to increase blade performance. Anhedral tip sections increase hover performance and lift capabilities of a rotary wing aircraft. Rotor blade tip sections are subjected to significant stresses/strains due to aerodynamic forces, and concomitantly experience significant structural degradation due to wear and abrasion. These aerodynamic forces may be increased upon a tip section with an anhedral form due to the loads induced thereby.
Conventional anhedral tip sections require numerous components to carry the loads induced by the anhedral form. Conventional anhedral tip sections may include two structural anhedral tip skins, two structural cores along with various non-structural components and redundant fasteners. Structural components may cost five times that of non-structural components and may require multiple expensive manufacturing processes to produce.